05/22/13 05/22/13 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] >> from pacifica, this is democracy now! i was at the top of my game. i gave everything. as soon as my ptsd started getting really bad, they just gave up on me. it was quicker and easier just to kick guys out. this is the thanks i get? >> "other than honorable."

the number of soldiers including when it, veterans are being kicked of the service for misconduct also with no benefits as the army downsizes after a decade of war. those with the most combat exposure are hardest hit. then from spying on journalists to spying on activists. because ire today want a part of democracy. america is democracy. >> as the obama administration faces criticism for spying on journalists, newly released documents show how the fbi, the department of homeland security and local police forces spied on occupy protesters, monitored their online usage, and ample treated their meetings. we will speak with matthew rothschild. a former death row prisoner in tennessee is set to walk free. we will look at the case of timothy mckinney. all of that and more coming up.

this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. authorities in morell, have lowered their estimate of the death toll from monday's devastating tornado. the total dead now stands at 24, down from their original number of 91. at least nine children have been killed. emergency workers say they've pulled more than 100 survivors from the rubble of collapsed homes, buildings, and schools. >> we had to be careful as we stood on debris that we were not standing on people buried underneath. as you can imagine, gut- wrenching time to deal with the families and communicate with them and tell them, we moved them to a location and tried to feed them information as we were getting at in. unfortunately, there were people who lost their lives, little children lost their lives. >> the national weather service has confirmed the 2 mile wide

credit hit the category ef5, the highest possible. in a white house address, president obama vowed federal aid for oklahoma's recovery. >> for all of those who have been affected, we recognize the face a long road ahead. in some cases, there will be enormous grief that has to be absorbent, but you will not travel that have alone. your country will travel with you fuelled by our faith in the almighty and our faith in one another. our prayers are with the people of oklahoma today and we will back up those prayers with deeds for as long as it takes. >> the federal government is expected to tap a more than $11 billion disaster relief fund to pay for recovery efforts in oklahoma. the congressional debate has already erupted similar to the partisan conflict around hurricane sandy last year. on tuesday, oklahoma senator tom coburn, a republican, sparked

controversy after saying in additional federal money for his home state should be offset by an equal amount in spending cuts. the bipartisan measure providing a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants has moved a step closer to approval. on tuesday, the senate judiciary committee advanced its comprehensive immigration reform bill in a 13 to 5 vote. under pressure from republicans and some members of their own party, democrats removed an amendment that would have recognized immigrant couples in same-sex marriages. the full senate could begin debate on the bill next month. the senate foreign relations committee has advanced a bipartisan measure to arm rebels but in the regime of syrian president bashar al-assad read the vote marks the first time u.s. lawmakers have formally backed the direct arming of the syrian opposition. 15 senators voted in favor of the measure while three voted against. democratic senators from new mexico and connecticut and

republican senator rand paul of kentucky all criticized the measure saying -- iraq continues to face a wave of sectarian attacks raising fears of a return to the sunni-shiite violence of 2006. at least 40 people were killed tuesday in a series of bombings and shootings. the killings came one day after 70 people died in several blasts. nearly 300 people being killed and violence of the past week. the mangled corpse of an afghan torture victim has been found near a u.s. military base in afghanistan. the victim. sayid mohammed, was last seen being taken to the base for interrogation in november. his body was found with both feet cut off. afghan officials are seeking arrest of an afghan america interpreter on charges of murder and torture. the interpreter was reportedly identified in a video showing mohamed's abuse. mohammad is one of 70 people who

disappeared after reportedly being seized in wardak province. the u.s. military says it's soldiers were not involved in the abductions but have not release the findings of an internal probe. orlando,-old man in florida has reportedly been shot dead by the fbi after being questioned about the bombing of the boston marathon. todashev was being questioned is the new one of the suspects. he died in what was said to be an overnight gunfire with fbi . the granted governments -- a military judge has ruled that some testimony of the upcoming trial of army whistleblower bradley manning will be kept from the public. the obama administration had argued for the secretive testimony by citing the need to protect classified permission. prosecutors are proceeding with

the charge that manning "aided the enemy" but have agreed to drop one count related to diplomatic cables in iceland. the trial is slated to begin june 3. new disclosures of government spying on a fox is reporter may have ensnared the network's other employees. the justice department tracked fox news reporter james rosen's personal phone records and emails after he obtained details of a secret government report in 2009 on north korea. the government has named rosen a potential raider, a better and/or co-conspirator in its case against rosen's alleged source, state department jin-rity adviser stephen woo kim. house phone number was also included in the probe. a federal appeals court has struck down an arizona law that bans abortion after 20 weeks of

pregnancy except in medical emergencies. abortion rights advocates challenged the measure last year. on tuesday, the ninth u.s. circuit court of appeals in san francisco overturned a lower court ruling allowing the ban to stand. in a statement, the center for reproductive rights said -- hundreds of workers and federal contractors in washington, d.c. held a one day strike on tuesday in a call for higher pay. a new group called good jobs nation is calling on president obama to sign an executive order requiring better pay for government contractors' low-wage workers. underreport says the government has the leverage to improve worker pay at contractors because it's already subsidizing nearly 2 million low-wage jobs.

thousands of california health workers are staging a two- day strike over staffing shortages and proposed cuts to the retirement plans. the strike is spanning all five medical centers in the university of california hospital system. a series of protests against north carolina's republican controlled legislature appears to be growing by the week. some 57 protesters were arrested at the north carolina general assembly on monday, the highest count to date. the naacp has been holding what it calls morell mondays, a weekly demonstration against north carolina republicans' legislative actions. these include cuts to social programs for restrictions of voting rights and the foregoing of medicaid expansion under president obama is health care law. those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with nermeen shaikh. >> welcome to all our listeners and viewers from around the country and around the world.

we begin today's show in memphis where a man on death row is set to walk free as early as today. in order to win his freedom, yet to plead guilty to murder he maintained he did not commit. timothy mckinney was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death in 1999 for the fatal shooting of officer don williams outside a comedy club in december 1997. mckinney appealed and won a new trial, which ended with a deadlocked jury. a third trial earlier this year also ended in a hung jury. as part of a plea deal, mckinney pleaded guilty to second-degree murder of the officer. since mckinney has spent almost 16 years in prison -- including 11 on death row -- he was immediately eligible for release on time served. his family expressed relief at his imminent release. this is his brother travis mckinney. man. is a free he is coming home. a long time.

>> the family a police officer don williams did not agree to the plea. they said in a statement -- meanwhile, prosecutor tom henderson of the district attorney's office said the deal was the most favorable one possible. >> in looking at the ramifications of either a not guilty or a dismissal based on the lack of being able to achieve a verdict, we think this is the best result for all of our clients. >> for more we're joined by reporter who's been following this case closely. liliana segura is associate editor of the nation magazine. her most recent piece on mckinney for the nation is called, "death in memphis." liliana segura was in the memphis for the last trial.

it is great to have you with us. lay out this story and is remarkable latest developments. >> the story goes back to 1997 and the details of the case are so convoluted and complex i would encourage you to read the case background for the facts themselves. from the start this was a case full of holes. absolutely no physical evidence relieve linking mckinney to the crime. >> tell us what is believed to have happened that night. >> the short version, on christmas 1997 there was a party at a comedy club. there were many people there and went late into the night. around 2:30 in the morning, officer don williams who have been working off-duty sort of moonlighting off the books of this comedy club was shot at point-blank range in the neck. he did not die immediately. he was paralyzed and spent weeks in the hospital. during those weeks, the community became very outraged

about the crime. any time a police officer is shot or killed, there is a race for a quick manhunt for it all eyes focused on mr. mckinney immediately. that was because he had been seen having an altercation with don williams earlier that night. he was out siding could not find a car was convinced it was stolen. he sort of made, according to mr. williams partner, made a threatening statements to come back and do something to the club. eventually, his presence became obnoxious enough they took down were briefly detained him, took down his information on a sheet of paper which was put in don williams pocket. later in the hospital, the same sheet of paper was retrieved. it became almost this golden ticket this fall in this crime. officers focused on mckinney at the expense of any other

suspect. there were numerous suspects who had been seen having arguments, tossed out of the club for being disruptive. >> can you talk about the owner of the joint? >> when i went to report this story, i met donald crump who owned the comedy club and a series of hot wings chains. playern interesting because he was one of the people who had thrown out a person from the club that nine. in the ensuing chaos of the crime, he was told the man he had thrown out that night was the man who shot don williams. he was very invested in the outcome because he was following the case closely. don williams had been a close friend. in his recollection he was working at one of his hot wings restaurant the day that mckinney was arrested a few days after the crime. he decided to go to the scene.

there was a swat team around rid there's quite a public atmosphere. the press was there. he was watching from the street when they brought out mr. mckinney. he looked and did not recognize him but he said, that is not the guy i threw out. he turned to a police officer and said, this is not the guy i threw out of the club. >> because the officer wanted to arrest him rich he said, please, don't read he was feeling guilty. >> the night he did throw out, there was talk of arresting him that night. donald crump ducked in and said, don't do it, just let him go home. himself largely for what happened. i want to be very clear. it is not entirely clear the man that donald, throughout was the man who shot on williams. there are a number of episodes like that that night. the significance of what he said is the police never followed up.

he suggested strongly that it could be someone else but they never did anything with that affirmation. >> i want to turn to a clip from the retrial last month. he is3:00 in the morning, the one who killed him read that is why he is hiding at 3:00 in the morning. that is why he is taking the license plate off. he knows he kill that man. he shot him in the back! >> liliana segura, can you comment on tom henderson and his role on this case? inhe became a major player this story because what i did not know when i started looking into the making the case is that

-- in addition to -- there was a lot of prosecutorial misconduct at the original trial. the original prosecutor was named jerry harris. he withheld school. evidence, evidence that would have cast serious doubt on mr. mckinney's built. many things that would of been crucial for mr. mckinney's defense. held with the complicity of the defense attorneys. >> as that called a brady violation? >> yes, which is very common across the country. tom henderson is a veteran prosecutor at the same office was a contemporary of jerry harris and there is a culture of corruption of those kinds of violations that is very old in shelby county and have gone uncorrected and get away with it. tom henderson has a pending our complaint against him out of

national documented numerous cases in which is not only help exculpatory evidence, but denied the evidence even existed. >> what is about shelby county? i think he mentioned it as well that three death row inmates have been released in the last three years. >> that is right. last fall and and and michael rimmer was released from death row. it was another time henderson case. -- it was another tom henderson case. openstore was broken wide but a reporter. >> does tom henderson not have to be reprimanded? >> in my opinion he has no business trying any cases, let alone a capital case. it was quite surreal watching him day after day practice as if -- the jury does not know

this is a man that would happily withhold exculpatory evidence that the sediments life. >> let's turn to timothy mckinney's attorney. john skahan said after three trials it was clear proving the case against his client was hard. >> we got to a point in the trial where factually i don't think the jury will ever be able to decide the fate of mr. mckinney. the options are to continue to try this case and spent a lot of taxpayer money or work out a settlement. >> why don't you take that to what has happened now in the last few days, liliana segura. >> it is extraordinary. after the third trial, automatically it was a foregone guess wen, well, i will see a fourth trial. in the weeks that have passed since, something changed. it is not entirely clear to me. i think the split was a to 4 in favor of the defense. eight to four in favor of the

defense. it is quite extraordinary because they said they don't make deals that they were willing to give him time served in exchange for the guilty plea. >> timothy mckinney has pled guilty to the murder of the police officer? >> second-degree murder, a lesser charge. he is out on time served. he never wanted to plead guilty to a crime he insisted he did not commit. that felony will follow him as it does for legions of other felons in order to get a job, fine house in. he has lost his rights as a citizen. but it was the price yet to pay for his freedom. -- it was the price he had to pay for his freedom. >> could yet made an outward plea? >> he was not eligible -- i believe if he had, the best he would have gotten i believe

would have been a life sentence which in memphis is 51 years. >> and alford plea? >> you can maintain their innocence but acknowledged there was sufficient evidence against you that would have led to a conviction. >> as we wrap up, you spent a great deal of time on this case in memphis. what is most important to you about it? >> what is most important about it, it is not unique. all of the pitfalls you see and the correction you see are absolutely at play and tons of cases across the country and not just death penalty cases. >> you have been in touch with timothy mckinney. do you know what his plans are once he's released? >> he is talking about leaving memphis. chance there is a good he will try to get out of there, try to find a job. i don't know what is concrete plans are. i hesitate to share what he is

told me, but he is a very good support network both in memphis and other states, so we will see. >> liliana segura, associate editor at the nation magazine, falling to the mckinney's case since he has been on death row. her most recent piece is called, "death in memphis." we will have a link on democracynow.org. when we come back, we go to colorado to hear about the number of soldiers who are coming home and being discharged, losing all of their health care. we will talk about what this means. stay with us. ♪ [music break]

>> this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with nermeen

shaikh. we move into memorial day weekend. >> we turn now to a new investigation that reveals how after the longest period of war in american history, the number of soldiers being discharged for misconduct is at its highest rate in recent times. many of the soldiers are wounded veterans who served multiple tours of duty. when they're kicked out, they lose their medical care and other benefits for life. a three-part series published this week by the colorado gazette features the story of several such veterans. it includes former army sergeant jerrald jensen who have the lower part of his face shattered by an ied in iraq. after was reconstructed, he then redeployed to serve in afghanistan were he was injured again. after he got home, he faced a less than honorable discharge after he tested positive for the dragon that inning. he asked to be retested, sing is an army prescriptions might be

to blame. but his commander refused and instead gave jerrald jensen the maximum punishment, cutting his rank to private, docking his pay, and canceling surgery to fix his face so he could spend weeks mopping floors, picking weeds, and scrubbing toilets. this is jensen speaking to the gazette about how soldiers still seem to have the same workers compensation rights as everyone else. >> if you are walking down the stairs with a briefcase in your hand and a stack of papers in your hand and the trip on the corner of iraq in the office building and fell down the stairs, which expect to have the people you worked for pay for medical bills? why shouldn't we? the reason why it is a bigger deal with us is because usually someone does not jump out of the corner of the stairwell and she within a k-47 what you are at work. an ak-n't shoot you with

47 while you are at work. contract, they agreed to take care of us and we agreed to serve. they are not taking care of us. >> that was for me are sgt jerrald jensen -- former army sergeant jerrald jensen, his job badly damaged. of a majorpart investigation published this week of a colorado springs is that called, "other than honorable." philipps,e go to dave the reporter who uncovered the story, and also author of, "lethal warriors: when the new band of brothers came home." in 2009 he wrote "casualties of war." tell us more about jerrald jensen and how he fits into this three-part series that you have just published.

>> jerrald jensen is an incredible story i think most civilians -- it would be impossible for them to imagine. he got hit by an ied while driving through baghdad and it went right through his head and essentially shattered the entire lower part of his face including his sinuses. he was not supposed to live. he was in a coma for months. doctors assumed if he ever came out of it he would be brain dead. the day he woke up, he got out of bed and was walking around riyadh after 13 surgeries, he told the doctors, the army doctors, hey, i want to go back and serve my country. i want to deploy with my old combat unit. so he went back to afghanistan to really vicious corner of the mountains in the south right along the pakistan border. there he was put in charge of a little mountaintop that took fire from the enemy almost every day. he was injured there again when

he was running to a gun post and fell and rebroke his face. he went back again to the united states were to a schedule that many more surgeries. he went into a wounded warrior the italian from a special unit in the army created to care for the seriously wounded troops -- a battalion from a special unit in the army created to care for the sears the wounded troops. he encountered a hostile environment. were writtenggling that for minor things. he was written up because he had bad infections and the sinuses and did not show up for inspection. he tested positive for and that means. he said, look, i am on sudafed from the army. would you retest this? i think it is a mistake. this is a man who had a spotless record before.

the army said, i would not believe this is by not heard of a tape of the conversation -- his commander of the special medical unit said, i am not going to retest that read it is not our job read he recommended she scrub toilets. even though the doctor said, he is too sick to do this type of stuff. maybe the most upsetting is while he was doing all of this extra duty, he had been scheduled to have surgery to have dental implants because he lost all of his teeth in these injuries. the commander he says canceled his surgery. to this day, he has no teeth. >> let's go back to jerrald jensen describing his encounters in fort carson's where transition was sergeants who had never deployed before and he treated the wounded harshly. >> i was assigned to pulling weeds, picking up cigarette butts, mopping floors, scrubbing toilets, sweeping floors,

scrubbing stairs, cleaning the barracks. when i told them, this is making me worse, making my injuries hurt worse by having to take more pain medication being prescribed by the doctors, i was told to man up. i was told they had taken great lengths to determine whether or not my profile said i could do these things or not, and they had determined my profile was not being violated by doing these things. i said, ok, the zero weeks ago that you have to bend over to pull it? it says, no bending in my profile. i cannot swat either because it says no squatting. i cannot crawl on my hands and knees because it says no crawling. they said, no, you can do it, man up and just do it. >> dave philipps, can you tell

us where jerrald jensen is now and how you came across this story initially? 's unitald jensen recommended him for a other than honorable discharge. that means even though he is serious medical issues, he would lose all benefits from the va. he technically could apply and appeal to the va to try to get those benefits back, but that process can take years and often times is not successful. really there were cutting him off and casting him out. he is obviously a fighter, a person who is going to get knocked down and get back up again. and so he decided he was going to do everything he could keep that from happening. what it took was going to generals are above anyone at fort carson and saying, look what they're doing to me after what i did for the country. you have to stop this. at the last minute they did and medically retired in. there are many people whose

wounds are not as obvious or are not able to stand up for themselves where that does not happen. they're just cast out. >> how did you come across the story initially? >> it started when we started seeing more and more soldiers in jail in el paso county. i want to see one in the armen literally have pulled him out of a psychiatric hospital -- i want to see one and the army literally had pulled him out of a psychiatric hospital. i started asking around to people who worked with veterans closely and they started connecting with some of these people who were being thrown out, even though they had multiple tours, obvious injuries. but these from a civilian point of view, obviously there conduct was minor considering a sacrifice. we wanted to make sure the stories were told. >> let's turn to another better new profile in your series, kash alvaro, who talks about how he struggled with ptsd since

returning from afghanistan in 2010 when it was leveled by his army unit as a malingerer and thrown out for misconduct. >> we see things, we have been through things that is never going to leave your mind. it is always going to be there. losing close friends, people used to hang out with, people you trained with are not going to be here. haveust to come back and someone tell you, oh, you're just acting now, you are just looking for sympathy. those people just don't understand. if you have a strong heart, that is good. that is good. but there are people in the

world that don't. you lose someone and it can break you. you lose 11 people, it is going to break you. you deployed with all of these people and expect to go home with these people. or twoke it another year years, three years, i am fine with that. if i make it until next week, i am fine with that, too. every soldier that puts up with it and fights that at all -- battle, there's always going to be more rest one day. >> that was wounded veteran kash alvaro. dave philipps spoke with him recently, this time he was in the emergency room and color

springs several 26 after having a seizure, blurred vision and numbness in his leg. he said his problems started shortly after he was injured by roadside bomb in afghanistan in 2009. >> what happened? --i had numbing and tingling in my leg yesterday and severe headaches and double vision in my left eye, and have not really been able to, uh, focus. --sleep is also to sleept been able very much. only a couple of hours. how that has your vision

gotten? left eye is completely blurry. my right eye is ok. i can see some things with my right eye. >> why did they bring you into the hospital? thatcause they were afraid i might have been having a stroke. the doctorswhat think? scan, they gave me a ct and drew blood. >> dave philipps, you were at his phillips. -- your at his bedside. how does he fit into this story? >> he is a sad story.

one reason we thought maybe the number of this charges were going up, misconduct is charges were going up in the army were that a lot of these guys might have been visible injuries like ptsd or a traumatic brain injury that you could not see a lot of times doctors cannot tell the severity of them, you know, what is misconduct and what is an entry? but kash alvaro de document a blast injury and started suffering regular seizures after word -- headaches, heart spasms. his unit kicked him out for minor stuff. dear bac"ght he was a " and a liar and they did not like him but it did not matter he was seriously injured. they kicked him out and did so in a way that kept him from getting benefits for the rest of his life. you kick out a 22-year-old kid who was having seizures regularly, he cannot work or get unemployment, had no family to

fall back on and he is homeless right now. he is staying for a little while with a veteran here in denver who is trying to get in some medical care, but he has nothing at all. >> i want to ask you about an email obtained by the gazette that shows fort carson's legal advisor on kicking out wounded soldiers. it reads -- dave philipps, can you talk about the significance of chapter 10 of against chapter 14

and what it means when soldiers are discharged with a chapter 10? >> it is a lot of army jargon but let me explain it as simply as i can. getting kicked out -- most people get kicked out of the army for misconduct for something called the chapter 14. that is the chapter, the regulation in the army regulations is no. 14. congress a few years ago put safeguards in place as say, if you're going to kick someone out through chapter 14 and you think they might have ptsd or a tbi, there needs to be all sorts of additional evaluation. if it is shown there might be a possibility of a connecting behavior or his behavior with the injury, you cannot take him out, you have to medically retired then. that is problematic for an army unit that wants to kick out a soldier that has this issue. it can take months or even over a year and a mind of the successful. they found out they could use

this back door called chapter 10. chapter 10 is a regulation that says, if you have been court- martialed, facing prison time from the army, you can volunteer as a soldier to say "i will resign from the army if you don't prosecute me." the army does not have to prosecute cases it might not want to, the soldier can get out of a possible trial in going to jail, and they both walked away. the soldier loses his benefits. what this email says is, chapter 10 skips all this medical review because it is voluntary. what you should do is take these soldiers who normally just kicked out and tell them we're going to court-martial you, put you in jail unless you sign this chapter 10. we found after that email was written, the number of chapter 10 that for carson went up like 300%. kash alvaro was one of these. he had only done minor misconduct.

showing up late, still a blackberry that did not belong awol for a few weeks. but when they got him, they threw him in jail for a few months and said, look, if you sign this paper you'll get out of jail. what they did not tell him is he would also lose his benefits for the rest of his life. >> let's hear from another soldier you interviewed for your series, "other than honorable." who sat inl sasse solitary confinement without charge for months after assaulting his wife and to the military police officers. the army diagnosed him with ptsd. >> i gave everything. as soon as my ptsd started getting really bad, they just gave up on me. it was quicker and easier just to pick guys out and have jails to filled up with them.

i've done three deployments for this country, and this is the thanks i get? i get insulted by guards and cannot even talk to my children? i am not saying what happened was right, but i don't know what happened. i am trying to get into a treatment program to ensure it never happens again. the army is denying me the ability to go to a treatment program. >> that is 3-tour special forces sergeant paul sasse. in 2012 he was diagnosed with ptsd, he was given drugs that make shamanic. a few weeks later he slams his wife's head against their jeep until she is covered in blood. take it from there and what has happened to him, what has happened to her. >> it is a long time coming inause paul was blown up iraq and hit by roadside bomb in 2007. he was having what we would probably recognized now as a

classic symptoms of both a brain injury and ptsd. when he came back from the deployment and went to the doctor asking for help, he said, i cannot sleep, having nightmares, cannot concentrate. they diagnosed him instead with attention deficit disorder and sleep disorder and gave him 80 madison during the day and sleep medicine to make him sleep at night and never addressed the issue. he kept the plane after that and things grew worse. did donosoinally with ptsd, they gave him medicine that government guidelines say should not be mixed, that are dangerous to mix. a few weeks later, he assaulted his wife. he beat her up at and beat up the military police they can to stop him. of course they threw him in jail. where else can you put someone like that? but the people he served with in carsonfficers at fort

were saying, take this guy out of jail and put him in an inpatient treatment place. this guy is sick and should not be sitting in jail. fort carson did not respond. what is tragic is, he sat in jail totally and medicated, growing even worse in the assault and guards in the jail. he is facing charges for that. if convicted, he faces 15 to 48 years in jail for something the army did. >> dave philipps, you also pointed out department of defense studies have shown both brain injuries and ptsd make it far more likely for military members to be discharged. can you explain what you found out about why that is the case and if there is any link between the military pause difficulty in identifying mental illness in general -- military's difficulty in identifying mental illness in general, and may have

a link to increased suicides? >> there have been studies, you know, and numerous studies both by the department of defense and by civilian researchers that say people with brain injuries, people with repeated deployments, people with ptsd are much more likely to run into all sorts of trouble whether it is a misconduct discharge or divorce or substance abuse or being arrested in the civilian world. and i don't think anyone disputes that. where the army runs into trouble is the people that are often try to make the initial decision of what is misconduct and what is an injury, you know they are trained to officers meant to lead army units, not mental health experts or brain injury experts. it is really hard. there is the definitive way to say, this is an injury and this is misconduct. so a lot of times or at least sometimes we know people make

the wrong decision. >> these soldiers, do they have some kind of medical examination or is it just their superiors in the military who examined them and determine -- >> there is more and more examination of these guys. they examined when they get home from diplomats, three months after, six months after, nine months after that. the staff of behavioral health clinic in the army has ballooned in the last few years. but there's also a backlash to that. leaders can look to those who go and use these medical resources as fakers, as people who want to get out of work and go to a province, people trying to bilk the army of benefits. we've seen a number of cases at fort carson where the command simply does not believe the doctors that say, your soldier has a brain injury or ptsd.

they go after them anyway. >> as we wrap up, just this issue you find in this remarkable three-part series, more soldiers being discharged for misconduct and at any time in recent history, the feeling you get from this piece, the military since these guys off to war, men and women, and now doesn't want to pay for them to do with care of sequester, to do with downsizing. no matter how horrific their crimes are, like this guy sasse beating up his wife, they are then just released into society if they are not arrested and not taken care of at all. >> that is right. first, let me say, if you want to see more photos and video and read these guys stories, it is sad gazette.com. wasyou're right, the army dealing with this is that an

army problem, but a societal problem. we're talking about over 2 million people that have deployed in the last 10 years and over 500,000 have more than one deployment. these are people who may have issues that they need our help with. if the army is the person who gets them on the right track, the first responder, and through its actions is banning them from care for the rest of their lives, that is going to affect our society for a really long time. we may be experiencing another thing that we saw with the vietnam veterans. >> dave philipps, thank you for being with us. we will have a link your series on democracynow.org. series published this because called, "other than honorable." he is also of -- author of, "lethal warriors: when the new band of brothers came home." when we come back, we go to madison, wisconsin to talk about occupy protesters -- not just journalists, but protesters

been spied on by the government but our next guest is the editor of the progressive who is calling for the resignation of attorney general eric holder. stay with us.

this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with nermeen shaikh. we end our show with a look at newly revealed documents showing how police partnered with corporations to monitor the occupy wall street movement. dba press in the center for media and democracy have obtained thousands of pages of records from counter terrorism and law enforcement agencies that detail how so-called fusion centers monitor the occupy wall street movement over the course of 2012 -- 2011 and 2012. these fusion centers are comprised of employees from municipal, county, and federal counter terrorism and homeland security entities as well as local police departments, the fbi, and the department of homeless security. the documents show how fusion center personnel spied on occupy protesters, monitored third

their facebook accounts, and infiltrated their meetings. one document showed how the arizona fusion center dispatched an undercover officer to infiltrate activist groups organizing protests around the american legislative exchange council, or alec. the undercover officer apparently worked for the benefit of the private entity alec despite being on the public payroll. >> democracy now! reached out to the phoenix police department to join us on the show but declined our request. the media relations to permit said in an email -- for more we go to matt rothschild, the editor of publisher for the progressive magazine.

he wrote the cover for the june issue on magazine, "spying on occupied activist: how cops and homeland security help wall street." he is also the author of "you have no rights." welcome to democracy now! lay out what you have found. >> thank you for having me. these documents from the center for media and democracy and dba press show law enforcement homeland security at equated protesters, left-wing protesters, as terrorists. they have diverted enormous to spy onf resources fr his protesters and collaborated with some of the very institutions these protesters were aimed at. as you read any stigma from the phoenix police department, the effort was to mitigate these protests. why is law-enforcement, homeland security, in the business of mitigating protests? >> i want to go to a response we

received from the phoenix police department when we reached them for a comment. they said that they were not treating occupy protesters as potential terrorists, said "we are an all hazards incident management team, have gathered information at all types of events including the superbowl, world series, sb1070 protests, etc.." can you say how it is there are monitoring of occupy protesters deferred qualitatively from the other events the phoenix police department's named? >> they're using resources from the arizona counter-terrorism information center, the fusion center, and using homeland defense personnel and the phoenix police department to track occupy activists. it is a little disingenuous of them to say they're not treating protesters as terrorists when

they're using their own anti- terrorist personnel to spend a lot of time simply tracking these activists -- one of the police officers on the homeland security bureau of the phoenix police department's said she is primarily spending her time tracking occupy protesters on social media. >> we also asked phoenix police of law enforcement is ample treading occupy meetings. he replied, "and patrick? no, attend open meetings, yes." we also asked sergeant crump of walker's contract aucuba activists online and he replied, "yes, we gather intel on a number of social media sites regularly." what about this and this issue of law-enforcement monitoring protests against alec? when we asked him this, he said, "yes, public safety." your response? >> they not only monitor the alec protest in late november sheetbut they also sent a

to the security personnel for alec, a face sheet of the faces and names and identities of occupy protesters who have been doing some activism in the phoenix area to make the ballot security personnel aware of who may be coming to their protest. >> so the police are working with the companies and organizations? >> absolutely. they were working for security for the american legislative exchange council, they were also letting security know when jackson was coined be in town to join in occupy protest and alec protest. is that really their job to be passing information on to these private entities? with some of the bank protests occupy phoenix was planning, there were giving downtown banks all sorts of and permission. they would give them everything they need, which was one internal memo from the phoenix police department when it was a day protest against these banks

and occupy was urging the bank customers to cut up their credit cards to these banks. which ones? bank of america, wells fargo, chase -- some of the very targets occupy had been protesting against. the question is, who are the police department working for? are they working for citizens or the private sector or the bank's? you put this in a wider historical context? is this type of surveillance unprecedented in the u.s.? what accounts for its occurrence during occupied in the way you described? >> unfortunately, it is not unprecedented. there is a terrible history of law-enforcement and the fbi spying on left-wing activists going back to the council program of the fbi in the 1960's and 1970's were they employed to the black panther movement and american indian movement. after those revelations came out, there were guns opposed by the justice department, the so-

called levee that runs, the attorney general under the ford administration, who said you cannot go spying on infiltrating activist groups unless there is a predicate of criminal activity. after 9/11, the bush a ministration and ashcroft, the attorney general, completely destroyed the levy guidelines and let law enforcement to any cut infiltration they want without any necessity or hint on the part of the activists. >> you've called for the resignation of attorney general eric holder. y? >> for a number of reasons for the first of all, this scandal about investigating reporters. i think that is outrageous. we had more than 100 ap reporters and editors that the justice department was gathering information on and now we of the revelation about the fox news reporter james rosen who was being accused of being a co- conspirator under the espionage act in 1917 simply for doing is reporting job. also the attorney general has

been essentially waging war on whistleblowers under the espionage act and on top of that, remember, this attorney general, eric holder, has been rationalizing the assassination program that obama administration has been engaging in, saying a drunken drop a bomb on u.s. citizen anywhere in the world and that u.s. citizen will already have had to process simply because the obama administration itself or the president or the secretary of defense calls that person a terrorist. that is not due process and that is not with the justice deparle should be doing, certainly the chief law-enforcement officer of this country should know better than that. >> matthew rothschild, isn't he just turned out president obama's policies? >> he very well might be, then we have a more serious problem, a problem at the very top with the president of the u.s., like george w. bush, engaging in illegal activity. >> thank you for be with us. we will have partook into the and posted on democracynow.org. matthew rothschild, editor and

publisher of the progressive magazine. democracy now! is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. e-mail your comments to outreach@democracynow.org or mail them to democracy now! p.o. box 693 new york, new york 10013. [captioning made possible by democracy now!] now!] from pacifica, this is democracy now!" as well as "this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. today in our special one reason edition of democracy now! on link tv, we are going to bring you a special conversation. features rare archival footage shot between 1967 and 1965, including the leading figures of the black power movement in the united states like bobby seale and angela davis and eldridge cleaver. the film was shot by two swedish journalists, discovered

in the basement of public television 30 years later. actor and activist danny glover coproduced the lack power mix tape, and i had an opportunity powerroduced theblack mix tape, and i had an opportunity to interview him at the sundance film festival. we are making that interview a to you today. i highly encourage you to call in at 866-359-4334 to get a copy of this documentary. danny gloverd by and jocelyn barnes. you will get a sense of it in this conversation. you can also get the full hunter station with danny glover for a contribution of $75. if you want them together, it is $150. without further ado, let's go back to that